Built in 1964, the lighthouse at Tadoussac was nicknamed “La Toupie” by local residents because of its resemblance to a to a child’s toy, a spinning top. It sits in thirty-eight feet of water, on top of a shoal near the mouth of the Saguenay River, which empties into the St. Lawrence at that point. The shoal on which the lighthouse sits was dubbed “Prince Shoal” due to the unique circumstance which led to its discovery.

In 1860, approximately 470 kilometres upstream from Tadoussac, a bridge had just been completed that connected Montreal to the city of Saint-Lambert on the south shore. It was named the “Victoria Bridge” in honour of Queen Victoria, who was invited to come to Montreal to inaugurate what was, at the time, the longest bridge in the world. Queen Victoria declined the invitation but sent in her place her son, Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales. A week before the bridge’s scheduled inauguration on August 25, 1860, the Prince’s ship, the H.M.S. Hero, ran onto the previously uncharted shoal. Subsequently, the shoal was added to the Admiralty maps and named “Prince Shoal” by Her Majesty’s cartographers.

The hourglass-shaped structure was first built at the shipyard in Levis, Quebec. It was a designed as a permanent structure to replace a lightship anchored on the shoal, which displayed white and red lights between its two masts and sounded a twelve-second blast of its horn every minute during foggy weather.

It was towed downstream to its current location by four chartered tugboats, and when the tide was right, its valves were opened to allow seawater in so it could sink and settle onto a specially constructed foundation on the river bottom. It was subsequently anchored in place by 8,000 tons of crushed rock and 50,000 cubic feet of cement. The lower cone of the structure is meant to break up ice formation around its base, and the upper cone is meant to disperse the energy of waves that crash against it during storms. The upper section contains an engine room and living quarters for lighthouse keepers. On top of this, a thirty-nine foot tower was built, along with a helicopter landing pad.

An unusually violent storm struck the Prince Shoal lighthouse Christmas Day, turning a traditional day of peace into a “day from Hell” for lighthouse keepers Roger Lagace, Claude Fraser and Yvanhoe Gagnon.

The three men were on scheduled duty on board the lighthouse, which is situated in the mid St.Lawrence River, about five kilometres out from Tadoussac.

Head keeper Lagace first noticed the developing Nor’easter when he came on duty at 4am Christmas morning. Gagnon, a former cook at Hotel Tadoussac, had been preparing Christmas dinner for the three men, and did not notice the strengthening wind. By the time Lagace became aware of the situation, the weather was already deteriorating badly.

The lighthouse, which was completed in 1964, stands in twelve metres of water on top of Prince Shoal and is isolated from land. It is known locally as “La Toupie” because of its resemblance to a spinning top.

Huge waves began to form as a result of the movement of the wind against the tide. The tower is built to withstand eight-metre waves, but at the storm’s height, waves as high as fourteen metres pounded the structure.

At dawn the door at Level 51, in the narrow portion of the hourglass-shaped tower, was pushed in by a nine-metre wave, and water began filling the bottom portion of the tower. A short while later, the men lost heat when the furnace was extinguished by seawater.

By noon, waves were smashing windows on the housing level, which is approximately twelve metres above the surface of the water, and icy water was now coming into the living quarters. Lagace sent a distress call to the Coast Guard, but rescue was impossible due to the storm’s fury.

At 2:00 pm the tide was at its highest, and waves began breaking over the helipad on top of the living quarters. For all intents and purposes, the lighthouse was now underwater and the living quarters were flooded.

Fed by ocean currents from the North Atlantic, the water can reach temperatures a few degrees below freezing. Under normal conditions, a man who falls overboard in these waters will not survive more than four or five minutes.

The three terrified men sought shelter from the fierce wind and the waves in the narrow confines of the light tower, where they huddled together for warmth. The monstrous waves continued to pound the structure for hours, threatening to dislodge it from its mooring on the shoal.

“We prayed hard,” Gagnon says. “We thought we were going to die.”

At 7:30 pm, radio contact with the stranded men was lost. The storm continued throughout the night, but its intensity began to lessen sometime after 10pm and by morning the sea was calm. However, help did not arrive until 3:30 pm that afternoon, when a helicopter was able to rescue the exhausted men.

The storm caused major damage to the living quarters and it tore the lamps from their supports, rendering the lighthouse dark for more than two weeks.

The Prince Shoal is considered one of the most dangerous spots to navigate in the whole St.Lawrence River.